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Court heraldry
What is SCA court Court in the Society and Kingdom of Drachenwald is an official occasion where the members are ceremoniously recognized for their deeds that distinguish them within the Society, Officers are set in place, and all matters that need to be officially announced to make them the deeds of our monarchs are declared. As such it is a wondrous occasion where you as a herald might have a great part to play. Understanding these courts and herald's role(s) in them is a good idea if you want to get involved. We start with courts here. The people involved and what kinds of roles they play in the proceedings. *''Royalty'', King, Queen, Prince, Princess, Viceroy, Vicereine, Baron, Baroness **There is always someone, usually someones holding the court. These people are either the rulers of the land whose court is in question or representatives of such rulers. The court is their's and they call the shots concerning it, regarding every last detail of this court. The court is assembled around their personages and deeds. **In the assembly the highest ranking landed nobles are sit at the center, others to their sides. *Their Herald(s) **Herald's job is to make the court happen and make it happen nicely as he is at it. Herald knows and keeps track of the proceedings, how the business is lined up at the court, who to call forth and when and he knows the ceremonies involved. He is also the bullhorn of the Royalty, who may at time speak in a language not understood by all attendees or in sotto voce, only to be heard by the people they are addressing (ok, that is bad form if done a lot in the court but it happens), so when the herald gets the chance towards the end of the item he makes it heard to the backrow and rafters as well, what was really going on in there, so bullhorn. The herald is an emphasizing and organizing aspect of the authority having the court. **In the court arrangements the herald is best placed by the thrones at the shoulder of a pointy hat that is most going to be responsible for the court proceedings, so that by gently leaning forth private instructions may be obtained. If this is the King or Queen varies by the couple. *Guards **At times it would be easy to classify the guards simply as decorations of the court, but from our point of view that wouldn't be wise. They have their uses, most obviously holding the sword, giving it forth to the Royalty when they need it in fealties and then taking it back. Also they can save the herald who is trying to juggle his court folder, set of scrolls and all assorted paraphernalia. Because of these functions the best place for the guards is directly behind the throne of that piece of royalty that is going to handle the sword in court. *Lad(ie)s in waiting **It is often a good idea to have additional helping hands at the court for such matters as taking care of tokens and the drinks of the royalty. These people in court fill that lot. Outside of court their functions often vary, but a herald will do well to find out how the particular set of royalty is using them. They can and often do set up the court area with thrones, kneeling pillows and such and when they do, that is one less thing for the herald to worry about. **In the common arrangement of courts they stand behind the royalty's shoulder at the opposite side from the herald so as to best help with the tokens and scrolls. *Heirs **Heirs from the herald's point of view are a form of visiting royalty and special in that they usually sit there quietly, not bringing their own retinue but belonging to their predecessor's. They only need to be seated at the same arrangement and remembered when making the end cheers. *Visiting royalty **The royalty visiting the main court, sometimes (and often) vassals to the royal crown of Drachenwald and rulers of Drachenwald's principalities and baronies. They are often granted the leave to hold their own court within the royal court and thus bring a retinue of their own with them. *Recipients and petitioners **The people who come before the court either to be recognized and awarded (invited by the royalty holding court) or people who bring some other business before the court and granted an audience. Of the first mentioned it is worth remembering that the court situation is very important to them and they ought to be handled extremely well when in the front, after all this is the moment when their deeds in the Society are officially recognized and celebrated by the gathered court. Of the latter, the crucial thing to remember is that no one surprises the crown holding court, no one. We go into details about these a bit later. *Audience **Often mistakenly forgotten or ignored part of the court proceedings. These are people, who are the court as well as the royalty holding it. The grandest king and fairest queen in our society are only as magnificent as their subjects believe them to be and the court is the place of such belief, faith if one wills, to the exteme. The mood of the situation is made in the collective of the gentles assembled and their suspension of disbelief keeps it afloat, so keeping this belief and sense alive through the court is most important. **The other aspect the audience needs to be noted by the herald, trying to herd royalty through court, does well to remember is that they can and sometimes do take part also at such points that were not expected . This mostly is not heckling, but it can throw unprepared off balance. When they happen, they need to be woven into the court and passed as quickly as possible. How does a court work and making it work Court is a gathering that happens in a particular physical set at the site, considered at the time of the happening central location. The physical arrangement is that to the one end of the hall, thrones are set, for all of the landed royalty that the most highest reigning (pointy hat or couple) is going to have sitting at the front. It is not necessary to have all the landed sitting in front, if they are not going to hold a part of court in there. Before the thrones the kneeling pillows are set, not beneath the feet of royalty but so close that the crown can easily reach forth to give tokens of the awards they are going to grant. There should be room enough behind the thrones for the retinue members and a place where the herald can keep his court tool nbr.2 the tankard of drink. Also from a herald's point of view it pays to make certain that there's light enough for reading the scrolls, a table for settling the scrolls on is a nice, but not a necessity. Sometimes people wonder which way the royalty should be settled on their pair of thrones and as the court herald should be a veritable source of wisdom in all matters relating to these proceedings it pays to know this nice rule of thumb. In case of tournament elected couple The sovereign (the one that fought) is placed so that his or hers sword arm is free, i.e. on the opposite side of the consort. In case of non-fight chosen ones, this gentleman can be considered to be the one to retain his free swordarm. However, the crown in question is fully entitled to wave this arrangement if they so choose. Herald's role in courtly proceedings was briefly described above and now we are going to have a look at how it is best achieved and carried out. Herald's tools for court work #A Book of Ceremonies #Tankard of drink #A notebook, pen/cils #Court folder, a receptacle to fit both needed ceremonies and the court list together, preferably the scrolls as well #Tabard #Clock The book is obviously the appropriate book for the court in question. The royal court needs the Drachenwald book of ceremonies where as a principality court is more concerned with the principality's own ceremonies. It is recommendable to have the book printed thus that it is easy to read. I have personally always preferred to print ceremonies out in a larger font, that is easy read in dim lighting and the longer texts divided so that it is rather obvious where to breathe. So if you are undertaking the work of a court herald, do feel free to make the ceremony prints work for you. The tankard of drink, should be something to lube your voice, which you are going to put through a lot during the court. The very first Drachenwaldian herald's handbook gave the advice to avoid all drinks that feel stinging in the throat as they tend to worsen your situation and obviously the same goes to most alcoholic drinks as well. Milky drinks can work for some people, but as milk also increases the amount of mucus secretion, it might also be a good one to avoid. Most heralds doing the courts repeatedly have preferred plain water as their drink of choice. Court folders vary and royalty often provides something to that effect. However those huge portfolios they give are not always the most handy ones and making one that fits your needs is more than recommendable. It needs to be something that looks at least passable to the eye, so as not to kill the suspension of disbelief (so no plain ringbinders with plasticky shine please), but also fit the function, i.e. make the ceremony texts easily available when necessary. Mine is a leathercovered ringbinder with various weighted cords for bookmarks. My courtlist goes to the front and the ceremony texts are in the binder section. You can make yours as fancy looking as you want. would be nice to have picture of the Pietari's leatherembossed folder here for inspiration By a rule, the royalty provides the tabard (the special openn mantlet of the herald), but if you are dedicated to this particular art form and like the idea of having a superbly done, well breathing garment that actually fits your size there is no reason to keep from making your own, but that is completely up to you. Clock is something that I have found a most usefull instrument for a herald especially during the final hour before the court. In many events the herald is the only person besides kitchen to have a clock handy and it makes good use. Preparing for the court It is a good idea to find out if you are a court herald as early as possible. Few weeks is my preference and what most royalty often allows for the heralds is a few hours. Having the possibility to start the preparations early gives you many benefits. You can co-ordinate with your pointy hats to get a list of people they are going to call forth and the awards they are going to give. You can ask the stewards to email you with a list of attendees with both sca and mundane names. Now you can practice the pronunciation of the recipients' names and the ceremonial texts for the awards. You can print the cereomies and scroll texts (either the actual ones you can ask from the scribes or the standard ones from the book of ceremonies) in such a format that fits your needs and you can together with the pointy hats do a preliminary plan for the succession of items for the court. (it is going to change at least once in the event, but it helps to have such preliminary work handy when there) There are a few kinds of items in the courts. One of the keysets is recognition items, which are the awards and tokens of appreciation. The second group is official announcements by the crown, and the third is by someone else. Fourth group is fealty-items setting of officers (a more official kind of an thing) and fealties of Peers. The last rather large group is the one I like to call fluff items. The challenges to wars and tournaments between the fiefs, letters, byplays and showitems thought up by the people (such as audience to petition about marrying, there used to be more of this kind of thing going on before). Now these should be mixed in a nice way to make the court a working one. The order of business in the court has a few aspects to consider *The first and last place are "positions of honour" *The atmosphere should have a rising intensity curve *It is a good idea to alternate matters a bit in a different kind of business items not clusters, this keeps the court more interesting to follow. *People in their first court(s) should have a few preceding items, so they see example of how to handle themselves in court, trust the experience: they do feel better about this. In preparation for the court the order of business is to be drawn up, and drawn as a list (that is legible to you) by you. It is traditional to call for people to tell the herald if they have business to bring before the royalty. This is done in tabard well in advance (like during the lunch) and after this you need to keep your notepad with you. You might do this a second (last orders way) time later to make certain you have everything. When taking business the rule to keep in mind is that no one surprises the royalty during court, so don't be afraid to play a bit of an inquisitor (but politely, mind you) with people about what they are coming up about. There are business that are handled during the court and business that can be handled later like for example during the feast or if the royalty will be sitting semiformally at state. I find it nice to inform people of the royalty's decision to handle their business at such later times. The call for business is obviously made only if there is an actual chance to take some business for the court, if already at that point it is known that the court is going to run for a goodly hour, there is not point in prolonging it any further. About one hour before the court, such collected business is mixed with the previously known ones and you have your final list. At this point it is good to make certain the arrangements for court are well under way and you as a herald would be well adviced to make two things absolutely certain. First is that you have drink handy for court, so that you can easily reach it and secondly that you are going to have enough light at the sport where you going to be performin from. At the same time make certain that the schedule is holding together and how you need to herd the royalty to keep the schedule. Final part of your personal preparations should be opening your voice. One can not stress the importance of this enough. You will be projecting your voice, for an extended time in a large space over a hundred people or so. You need to be able to make your voice last the stress without braking and the songlike projection is how it is done, this will be much easier if you'v opened your voice in the range that you will be using. So please do yourself this one service. Running the court The court scnene by fashion opens so that the Herald leads royal company in to the hall bellowing something that tells the people to greet the royalty. The order of approach for the walk in is herald, the royal couple, ladies in waiting guards (and if applicable after them the following similar retinues). The cries used are usually something like "All rise for X:X" or "Make way for X and Y, the True and Rightful rulers of..." There is no need to be curt in these, only real limitation being what you can in adherence to the society's way come up with and how long a time it is going to take to proceed into the place of court. During the procession in the audience by custom remains standing and quite often in a state of reverence, i.e. bowing to the thrones' general direction. about making up titles for the rulers as per historical examples of litanies opposed to and by Society's traditions and limitations The herald skivvies to his place, Royalty gets seated, others mill to where they are supposed to go. When all appears to be in order, the Crown agrees that it is so and the herald gets to make the actual beginning comments, "You have their magnifiences' permission to be seated" and "Hereby opens the court of their Magnifiences X and Y" Surviving the court What ever you dom don't panic :) Working with royalty Working with royalty in the context of court heraldry can of course mean a lot of things and the aim of this chapter is to give some initial ideas on most of them. Quite often the royalty, especially those new to the role are extremely nervous. Different people handle this in various fashions, but mostly the problematic...ideas and behavior our rulers may have and engage into come from good old stage fright, wishing to do the job well and fear that they indeed might not live up to it. In this you as a herald can be invaluable help, or insufferable hindrance. As the pointy hats are trying to slip into role of the monarchs and lieges it helps if they are smartly treated as such. That is why it is important to remember the proper forms of address even if the rulers are some of your best mates and chums. When court preparation is engaged to, they to you ought to be excellencies and highnesses and you their most trusted and valued servant and liege man preparing the grand spectacle of their this nights visitational court. Secondly in curbing their anxiety keeping yourself calm is essential. So as in certain other guides you might have read, here in big friendly letters: Don't panic. Keep you voice calm and even when discussing the problems related to court preparation and possibly missing ingredients (like the missing knight or candidate). Be on schedule on your part and do your best to keep them on theirs (more on this later). Preparedness helps a lot in securing your own calm. So getting information out of royalty early enough, allows for you to plan ahead and make necessary preparations before the final hour before the court was scheduled to happen. Preparedness Yes, preparations as related to working with royalty likely deserves to have its own heading. As in all matters pertaining to court heraldry (or assasinations) preparedness is the key to success. Before the event Contrary to the popular belief, a lot of preparation can, should and often is done before the actual event. By my own experience, sometimes utter disasters have been avoided via such approaches. Who is the herald The first part of preparation on court herald's part is finding out if he is (and in some cases making certain that he is) the herald for the upcoming court. Certain herald's offices garner the responsibility for court herald's duties, sometimes it is just personal enthusiasm of a private pursuivant extraordinaire that sees him engaged to handle a court. No matter what is the exact case with you, a willingness to uptake these duties, or a deepseated feeling of responsibility the course is the same, contact the crown. Write them in advance (maybe two, maybe three weeks) before the actual event and politely inquire if they already have engaged a herald or if they would be willing to have you. At the event Court reports Writing ceremonies for the SCA courts Writing ceremonies has actually two parts to it. One is writing the ceremony. Writing about the actors and their roles in it, as well as their actions and lines. The other part is writing texts for the writs and deeds ( commonly referred to as scrolls ) that are the key part of most ceremonies we have. Some people writing these latter the scribes work and prerogative, but as it is the herald who delivers the most important public rendition of these and is usually best positioned to develop a deeper understanding of these, it is prudent to have a good look at those in this volume. Writing ceremonial proceedings The ceremonies can be considered a form of play or liturgy and their constituent parts a meaning that derives from this function. The written ceremony is intended to communicate the form of play to take place and certain important lines from it. Thus it is a good idea to write them so that this function is best served. The easiest way to achieve that purpose is to understand and use literal form that supports it. Looking at the period plays or our book of ceremonies one can easily note few variants that an aspiring ceremony writer will need. ; Headers : All ceremonies appear under their own headers and if they are long may contain further headers for their sections such as "Opening", "Calling forward the Heirs" or "Coronation Oath" ; Lines : Actor's lines are always preceded by the actors such as "Queen: Your Highness, great are the burdens of the Crown; you cannot bear them alone. Who will share this burden and rule beside you? " If the line can be spoken by one or the other actor, it is a good idea to note that in the header such as "Queen/Herald" or "Queen/King". One should note, that even if the lines for the herald can be pre-arranged, long and elaborate, the rest of the actors will have to perform by their memory alone and quite often relying on the information of custom alone to advice them in the delivery. It is therefore a very bad idea to write ceremonies that rely on particular spoken ques from anyone else but the herald. It also follows from this, that even and especially in special ceremonies the lines written are actually place holders for something that follows the intent. For example in the alternate Pelican ceremony for Johann Magnusson that is given as example in the Royal Book of Ceremonies he is shown answering the King's (via his herald) question "And last night, did you sit your vigil?" with a somewhat insolent "My ass is still frozen solid". Needless to say, he did not say those words, but answered in a perfectly correct fashion. Those particular words only marked the intent of what he was supposed to say, "yes indeed I sat in the vigil". ; Direction of action : Such as "Queen waves towards herald.", "Short pause by everybody." or "King, Queen, Crown Prince and Princess sit down on their thrones and the Royal court continues with regular business." This kind of text is usually set in a different typeset to ease it's recognition and keep a nervous herald from reading it aloud. ; Descriptive prose : Not always done, but the ceremonies can contain paragraphs about the intents. set-up or other background matters. These are usually at the beginning of ceremonies.: : Letters, proclamations, writs etc : Quite often one piece of a ceremony is a letter or a writ read out for all assembled. These texts often take the form of a period legal document and are discussed in more detailed fashion below. The actual content of the ceremony is composed of these building blocks. If you want and have not done so already, now might be a good time to leaf through the Kingdom book of Ceremonies and then reflect the following against that information. One must bear in mind that what is happening in court are the royal deeds that have legal effects in the Kingdom. These deeds are carried out in ritualistic manner and thus have a ritualistic form. Thus All of the ceremonies begin with either "summons" or "invocations". Summons are easier to understand, via their herald the Crown summons or invites either a recipient or witness to their deeds. Simplest form is the standard form of the Awarding Arms where the herald summons a person the Crown wishes to address. When we are introducing people to our orders the first summons might not be for those for the recipient, but for the Order itself to bear witness or bring forth the new worthy. A more experienced, thespian minded, and crafty crowns may play with the forms of summons, say change a few opinions on the day's lunch and then demand the cook to be called forth before Awarding him an Award of Arms. The other way to open a ceremony is by invocation. The most notable example of that form can be found in our Book of Ceremonies for the King's Order of the Companions of Albion, with a four pages of prose delivered by herald, followed by a pause and his line "And so does His Majesty call before Him ____________". Invocation is a piece of text intended to set the mood and emotion to desired pitch as well as invoke ideas and ideals suitable to the occasion. It can actually appear in the later part of the ceremony as well, but especially when making awards for grand merits of our gentles it is a great way to open a ceremony. The example invocation tells of great services done selflessly and going unrecognised by the recipient crown, until too late and the following award being created to make certain that such thing can never happen again. The story raises the emotion of recognition of truly grand service and foreshadows the royal deed to be done. Until finally, the recipient is called forth and all that emotion is poured onto him and he is made the beacon of that idea for the moment, but this though good to think is yet early to ponder. When the ceremony is opened it must be also advanced and usually what follows is The crown's direct words, to the recipient witnessed by the assembled court. On some occasions these are longer and on some very rare one's they are completely skipped, but usually the Crown personally acknowledges the presence of their subject at this point. What they say would usually be a few nice words on what the Crown has perceived of the gentle's good works relating to the matter at hand. These can not be written before as such addressing must come from the Crown and be genuine. However variations exist especially if the opening was summons for some order to bear witness for what follows. Then the next move could easily be invocation and many of the Drachenwald's royal ceremonies follow that pattern. In those cases the invocation is ( usually ) followed by summons of the actual recipient, sometimes by order fetching him. Again the recipient is at least briefly recognized by the Crown as described above. The ceremony may proceed by formal judging of the recipient, accounts of his worthiness. A good example is the ceremony for the now closed Dragon's Steel, where the King and Queen discuss the candidate for the Order, before offering companionship to him. In that case the candidate is also asked of his desire to join the order, which is relatively rare. This similar part of proceedings may be seen in the peerage ceremonies, when various representatives of Society virtues (Chivalry, Artistry, Service and Courtesy) are called forth to speak for the candidate. Those are the extremely elaborate variations of the pattern, but in Dragon's Steel a lesser example is evident. In the case of award ceremony, no matter what takes place in the middle there will inevitably be a point, where a royal will is enacted. This is done by reading the royal deed (aka scroll, see below) and possibly giving recipient a token of the order. In the cases of the Kingdom's armigerous orders the giving of token is often unmentioned in the ceremony script. For a good example of it, please see the Dragon's Steel ceremony. The reading makes the matter official and seals the deal. The final parts of our typical award ceremony are when the crown raises the recipient and in the case of the order advices the order to receive him well and the herald to proceed to cheers, which is the final polish to the royal deed. The pattern of cheers is to pronounce the recipient at their new station and call for appropriate cheers (singular vivat or plural vivant). Some ceremonies may contain swearing of oaths or fealties. Peerage ceremonies and the ceremonies where we create officers of the crown are such. The swearing is traditionally done so that the crown calls for a sword and both parties place their hands on it. Then the person swearing to the crown either speaks his own words or listens to herald's words answering "so swear I" or similar at the appropriate part. The crown's reply then is given similar treatment. In case of officer oaths swearing the fealty, creates the officer in this new estate and the result is pronounced by either the crown or the herald. diagram of procession of ceremony The textual content of the ceremonial elements - General, language, use of thesaurus, gravitas versus pompousness, ritualism, rule of two, rule of three - Invocations - Oaths - Scroll texts The scroll texts as they are called are legal texts. They cause things to happen (usually granting estate and privileges) and they should communicate this in a manner that is faithful to the period examples and models, but keeping in line with the limitations and forms as dictated by the Society's structure and custom. For example our Crown may not create a barony with lands when awarding a member with a barony, a situation and model that would be quite unheard of in period. Nor may the crown in these deeds extrapolate heraldic inheritance from Society arms by dictating cadency as the arms are controlled at society level. - For examples, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/16th_century/humfrey.asp